


Many, Many Times

by ladygrange



Category: Led Zeppelin
Genre: Anal Fingering, F/M, Oral Sex, Outdoor Sex, about halfway into the interview philip talks about working on pieces, all these ways back to myself, and in turn lose my conception of its value, and working so heavily on each specific section at a time means the whole thing gets a bit lost, even though that isn’t really lost, how hard it is to conceptualize the whole piece at one time, how he can only see a few parts of the piece he's working on at a time, i lose the whole to a tiny part of the story, i think this is what happens to me (in words instead of music), in 1999, ira glass interviewed philip glass at the field museum in chicago, it’s all crammed in my notebook - all my stories and snippets and notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:47:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26097337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygrange/pseuds/ladygrange
Relationships: Jimmy Page/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 7





	Many, Many Times

_Stargroves - April 1972_

Naked, kneeling, hair crowned with flowers, a shepherdess bathes in a pool of faded blue. Lambs flock the bather at the water’s edge. A vast and lush park swaths the background in green. The animals are entranced by…something. The paint has cracked in places.

“Is she playing a flute?” Emma asks Jonesy.

Both are sat at the impressive harpsichord, its bench just big enough for two. Still playing, Jonesy squints at the lid of the instrument, propped open all the way to resemble an easel.

“A pan pipe maybe, or a lyre. Hard to tell since she’s not facing us,” he says. 

Emma nods. She watches the upper keyboard move in sympathy with his playing on the lower keyboard. As do the wires strung the length of the harpsichord, plucked in time. The whole sound set off by a delicate soundboard.

Stargroves is unfurnished and cavernous as a result; the echo astounds – must travel out the open windows which flood the room with light. Out to the mobile recording truck, a giant box, stark with its camouflage paint job, doors flung wide. She catches a glimpse of Robert bobbing about, chattering to someone out of sight.

Jonesy has moved on, to the track still unnamed and a melody that doubles back onto itself. The harpsichord gives it a distinct, plucky effect, like a music box.

“How do you plan to mic it?” she asks. “You want to preserve the range, obviously, but the acoustics in here…”

“Not as good as the Grange,” Jonesy finishes, tinkering with a piece of the melody.

“Can’t exactly haul this thing to another room either,” she muses. “Maybe get a few capacitor microphones from the truck and stick two near the strings, not too close. Place one near the body, a few steps away at most.”

Jonesy grins at her. “Thought you weren’t here to work.”

She purses her lips. “I’m not.”

He looks unconvinced. “Heard tell you got a good gig at the BBC.”

“Jimmy has loose lips.”

Jonesy raises his brows, lips perked. “That could not be further from the truth.”

A smile plays at the corner of her mouth. Jonesy continues with the melody – Jimmy already had the guitar parts worked out with acoustic. Had plans to layer various parts over electric. She recalls, just this morning, his hands moving as he’d talked, as though to shape the song with air. 

“It’s good here,” she says, cheek in her fist, elbow on the edge of the harpsichord’s case. “The focus is good, not the house’s acoustics so much. But the tracks, they’ve jelled.”

Jonesy doesn’t look up from the keys but she can tell he’s listening.

“We’ll go down to London later, I’m sure,” he says, peeking at her from the side. “You could come then, too.”

She elbows him and gets a chuckle. More of the tune, slower, a bit melancholic. Over and over as a trance. The strings dance slowly each time Jonesy forms the notes. 

“Did you always want to record?” Jonesy breaks her reverie. At her nonplussed look he adds, “Be an engineer, I mean.”

She scrunches her nose thoughtfully. “I wanted to be like my brother.”

“Andy or Glyn?”

“Oh, Andy, mostly because we’re closer in age. Glyn had his own gang.”

Jonesy nods, slowing to look at her.

“In Epsom, yeah? Did you know Jimmy then?”

She nods, quite serious. “We were lovers then too.”

Jonesy grins. She traces the chipped edge of a black key, the color scheme a perfect inverse of a piano. A breeze blows through and smells of spring. 

“We didn’t,” she continues. “Not that I recall at least. But Glyn loved choir, as much as you if that tells you anything. He stayed on even after his voice broke.”

She continues tracing the keys of the upper manual, and she remembers: the small sum allowed to Glyn after becoming the head chorister, and how he’d buy a bag of hot chips on his way home. How he’d share a few if she pleaded. She wants them right now, suddenly. Golden wedges, a small mountain’s worth, with the sharpness of malt vinegar and a shattery exterior, the pillowy starch inside of a well fried chip.

Her fingers walk across the keys. Jonesy pauses to light a cigarette. He waits for her to gather her thoughts

“Anyway,” she continues. “St. Martins would have these talent competitions, and I remember Glyn raving about a boy playing acoustic, said he sat at the edge of the stage while he played.”

“I didn’t win that competition, darling.”

She and John turn to see Jimmy push himself off the doorjamb. She smiles. His hair is wind ruffled and shorter than it’s been in over a year.

“And you didn’t take Glyn up on session work at first either, Jimmy,” she retorts.

Jimmy saunters over to her and John stands, stretching his arms out.

“I would’ve lost my grant at art college,” Jimmy says.

“Obviously you were addled.”

The sides of his eyes crinkle, he bends to kiss her temple. “Obviously.”

“Have you finished out there?” she asks.

“Just about, need John to give it a listen.”

Jonesy nods and ashes his cigarette out the window. 

“Be sure to get the harpsichord ready to record, Em,” he says evenly while he walks out.

She flattens her lips and turns to Jimmy, who regards her with curiosity. Eyes bright with something excited and energized. 

“How long have you been there?” she asks, fingering the knitted vee of his sweater vest.

“Long enough to know you were daydreaming about lunch.”

She hides her smile at his chest and accepts his hand. They make it down the grand hallway before Jimmy ducks into a room, tugging her along. This one is empty even of microphones stuck in the fireplace or amps in the windowsill. 

“There’s no chips in here,” she laments, even as Jimmy takes her hips in hand. “You’ve misled me, Jimmy.”

Jimmy nudges his nose to hers.

“Darling.”

She nudges back. “Jimmy.”

He runs his hands along the thin cotton of her sundress – a pale yellow of whipped egg yolks, rich and aerated. The exact match to a line of color in his fair isle sweater vest.

Jimmy presses her to the wall, against dark panelling that must’ve seen centuries. 

“This,” she murmurs, struck by the gaze noting her. “Is not lunch.”

Jimmy stops his perusal when he meets the backs of her thighs, fingers flexing on her bare skin.

“But you’re my darling,” he says, as though this explains everything.

A brow raised, half-grinning, she says, “Oh, I am?”

“Mmm,” Jimmy nuzzles the side of her face. “You are.”

“Ahh, I see.” She sifts her hands through his hair. “You’re very pleased with the work today.”

Biting kisses score her neck, sweetened with his tongue afterward. A hungry sound forms in the back of his throat. With her thumb, she feels the crinkles beside his eye. Pleated skin that signals happiness. 

She lays her cheek at the top of his head, nestling in thick, dark hair. 

“Very pleased," she says.

Jimmy runs a finger along her underwear, where the lips of her sex meet in a seam. Her breath shivers out and ruffles a piece of his hair. 

“Emma.” A kiss to the bottom of her throat. “My sweetest darling.”

Her hands strive in his hair, against the roots. 

“Are you really suggesting we have sex, here in this room that has not been dusted in quite some time?”

His smile curves on her skin. “Yes.”

“Well,” she says, just against his ear, voice soft, fingers at his zip. “How about something to tide you over?”

She meets deliciously warm skin, hardness, a grunt when she cups him. She kisses under his jaw, tasting the stubble underneath. She knows his pleasure on sight.

“Let me?”

Jimmy nods, his flush high, his blue jeans and underwear worked down easily. Kisses to the slight curve of his hip. To where he is aroused and has been for a bit from the looks of it, she thinks, kissing the tip of his cock repeatedly before letting a dollop of saliva fall. She follows it to the base, licking all the while.

“You taste nice," she says conversationally. 

One hand works a tight fist, the other rests on his thigh for support. A pained chuckle leaves Jimmy. 

“Thank you, darling.” 

“And I think," she pauses to suck near his testicles. The act draws a bead of fluid to the tip of his cock. She does it again, delighted. “I think I want to try something.”

“Try something…" he leaves off with a moan. 

She suckles the crown, chin messy. Hungry. Palm loose to cup his testicles. Testing their weight, knowing the sensitive strip of skin behind. Knowing he'll come if she goes too fast.

She removes her mouth to meet his gaze - so heavy lidded, pupils big. Cheeks a ruddy color.

“Yes.” 

She makes sure to keep his eyes while she sucks her first finger into her mouth. Until it's slick and lubricated. Until Jimmy's cock meets the back of her throat and her finger meets puckered skin. Soft, crinkled, private skin.

“Emmaline." His voice is thick, his thumbs bracket her ears, fingers pressed to the back of her head and into the braids pinned there. “Emmaline, fuck…” 

His cock twitches in her mouth. She draws back to see the plummy head weep helplessly when she works her first finger inside him. Easy and slow. His jaw hangs open. She kisses the base and works her mouth in tandem – fucks in and out in and out. Takes the head once more. To hollow her cheeks and savor his taste. His sounds. Hips working in a jagged way, as though to get closer, deeper.

Jimmy knows she'll gag if he loses control. But she wants him unravelled. She curls her finger and hears her name as a cry. That spot inside will do the trick, will make him come. She slows and kisses the slit of his cock. 

“Jimmy,” she says in a low voice. His skin is wet velvet over hardness. “Let go."

Jimmy pants and manages wordless sounds. Gratifying to her ears, they speak of pleasure that takes him past sense. She suckles while her finger curls inside that tight little channel. Hums and writhes her tongue and takes him until her nose meets dark pubic hair. Until Jimmy can take no more. Tight spasms grip her finger. Semen flows in milky spurts down her throat. He stiffens, calls out for her, keeps her head immobile on his cock until it eases.

Spit hangs from her swollen lips when Jimmy pulls her away. He's hypersensitive and still catching his breath. She removes her finger and presses gentle kisses along his hips and thighs. Above his softening cock. Flushed skin made warmer by the sun coming through the windows, a light sheen of sweat on his skin. His sweater vest is bunched and woolen on her nuzzling cheek.

“Emmaline." Pleasure drunk, body loose from orgasm against the wall, Jimmy shapes his hands over her head. “My darling, come here.” 

She fixes his jeans and stands with a satisfied grin. Crinkles greet her. Lips curling, Jimmy cups her face. 

“So good," he murmurs, putting kisses between his words, all along her face.

Her eyelids flutter under his peppering kisses. “It was.”

Jimmy licks a stripe under her lower lip and murmurs, “Now you.”

She chuckles, shaking her head. Jimmy frowns. 

“I’m going to wash up, and you are definitely needed outside.”

Just as she turns away, Jimmy catches her round the waist and pulls her flush to his chest. Lips to her ear, he asks,

“You’ll be right back?”

She presses against him. “I will."

A small, happy sound leaves him. He kisses the back of her neck.

“There had better be lunch when I get back,” she says over her shoulder. 

There is lunch. On the lawn, sprawled with Robert, who insisted she discard her sandals. Her toes curl into freshly mowed, cool grass and delicate white daisies. A bag of crisps, ripped open, foil shining in the sunlight, sits between them; Robert had already commandeered the rest of her cola. In retaliation, she polishes off the rest of his sandwich.

Spread somewhat haphazardly before the house: stools, talkback microphones for conversation, one acoustic lies on the ground, Bonzo noodles with the other. Jimmy has headphones on, legs dangling from the back of the truck. He catches her gaze and smiles. 

“You’re only down for the day?” 

She turns her head at Robert’s voice to find his eyes closed, hands clasped behind his head. A book rests open, spine up on his chest.

She hums. “Got to be at work early tomorrow.”

“Work.” He cracks an eye, a smile too. “Feels a bit like holiday right now.”

She thwacks his shoulder. “That’s because you’ve been napping or reading for most of it.”

“Someone’s gotta do it,” he says, grinning.

“What have you been reading anyway?” She takes the book from his chest. “‘Over the Hills and Far Away.” I didn't know Tolkein wrote poetry.”

Robert rolls to his side, head propped on his hand. A dimple forms in his cheek. She suspects mischief.

“It’s about a chap who follows a tune into the woods to find Tinfang Warble playing a flute. He could make the stars twinkle when he played. Been reading it Carmen.”

She smiles gently. “And does she think you make the stars twinkle?”

“Nah, she thinks her Mum does that,” he says, twisting a daisy idly. Then, grinning, “She likes it when I put on voices.”

“You do have plenty of those,” she says, returning the book and settling to her back.

Sun paints her eyelids a saturated red. A flock of chatty starlings fly past; their blues and purples iridescent. Jimmy comes to sit cross legged at her head.

“Hello,” she murmurs, eyes shut.

Jimmy presses a kiss to her forehead. She nuzzles closer and finds his hand stays in her hair, keeping count of the strands.

“Was the track like you wanted?”

“I think so,” Jimmy says.

She opens her eyes to see the edges of the clouds lit silver; it leaves an echo in her retina each time she blinks. She turns her cheek against his thigh, where the seam of his jeans comes together.

“I think I want to fade the track out,” he says, hand passing though, again and again. A habit. She nods against him. “Then bring it back, like an extra breath.”

She takes one, voice drowsy and lulled by his touch, his voice.

“That sounds lovely.”

“Get the harpsichord at the end as well, if we can.”

She grins. “Even more lovely.”

Jimmy cups her exposed cheek, flushed and sunny, fingers near her mouth. Stroking her face, Jimmy nods over his shoulder.

“Walk a while with me.”

She nods and makes to sit; Jimmy guides each sandal on her feet. Robert snores lightly nearby, hand wedged in the book.

Set like an ostentatious rectangle in its manicured park, surrounded by field and forest for miles, the mansion glares white. Only the ivy covered front saves it from the afternoon sun. Still, she thinks as they round the side, it sits unoccupied and eerie as a result.

Her body relaxes when they enter the garden, the whole bloom and grow of it lightens her.

“Careful here.” Jimmy takes her hand. “The steps are uneven.”

Rain has gathered in low parts of the ground; plump brown wrens wash their wings and feathers, and promptly scatter to the stone wall mortared with moss.

A roundabout forms at the garden’s center, with offshoots to flower beds and layers of fluttering color. Someone had taken their time. 

Jimmy bends to explore a patch of creamy primroses. As it always does, the back of his shirt has come untucked. From dancing this time, she thinks, lips twitching. Him and the others stepping in time to a recently finished track.

“What’s that face for?” Jimmy asks, straightening from the flowers.

She pecks his jaw. “I was thinking about your dancing.”

Jimmy grins. “Were you, then.”

“Mm,” she says. “I was thinking about that extra breath, too.”

“You like the idea?” 

She nods. “It’s like a coda, a surprise.”

“Yes, that’s it exactly.”

He’d sung the melody to her in his rushed, quick way with fingers tapping the rhythm out. Must’ve been a few days past, she thinks, his arm around her waist as they stroll. Their feet in time. A pair of magpie birds peck at the ground, their black cowls give them a clerical air. 

In time, they walk each lane of the garden, and quite distantly, an airplane buzzes overhead. There is no hurry. 

“This garden, it suits you,” she says, resting her cheek on his shoulder. 

“Hmm, Eddie called me a schoolboy this morning.”

“Well you are very studious," she pauses to chew her lip thoughtfully, “It takes a certain quality to bring your guitar to church to tune it with the organ and have it confiscated, then to school with the same results. And of course plugging into your parent’s radio for an amp.”

Jimmy grins. “Those were the dark ages, darling, had to use what was on hand.”

“I’m sorry, did I say studious?” She nudges against him. "I meant dogged.”

He kisses the top of her head and nudges back, “We’re alike that way, Emmaline."

“I have no idea what you mean,” she says dryly, a smile at the corner of her mouth.

Jimmy brings her against the front of his body. And takes her face, her mouth. He tastes of good, strong tea. Two sugars. Light milk. His lips quirk when he pulls away.

“Don’t you?” he says. 

Her smiling cheeks push against his palms. “Maybe a bit.”

Jimmy draws her deeper into the flowers. Delicate pink snapdragons surround their legs. Bees drone lazily inside. A breeze sways everything to the left, then the right. Then bright stillness.

Jimmy considers her with a slow, easy gaze. 

“Take your hair down, darling."

Emma unwinds the plaits at the back of her head, keeping his look all the while. Her hair hangs in loose crimps down her shoulders. Hairpins stowed in her dress pocket, she holds her arms to him and receives him a breath later. Jimmy buries his face in her neck and issues a deep, satisfied sound of pleasure.

“You smell nice,” he murmurs.

She chuckles. “It’s the lavender over there.” Delving into his hair, she scratches lightly. “We can pick some and take it home if you like. Though, I think Plumpton has a patch somewhere.”

He’d just bought the new house, it’s interior and exterior still unexplored. She plans to rectify that soon. 

“It does, to the south part of the garden,” he murmurs, investigating the bodice of her dress – smocked in a honeycomb fashion. Jimmy wiggles his fingertips into the miniature diamonds as though to get at some sweetness. She shivers.

“We’ll explore more before the Amsterdam gigs.”

“Okay,” she says, very softly.

The straps to her dress tie at each shoulder in a bow. Jimmy undoes them carefully, with a kiss to her skin after each one. And he peels the fabric down for her breasts; her nipples tighten under his gaze. She whimpers when he takes one in his mouth, red lips clasped around her areola. 

“Jimmy…” she swallows thickly - he switches to her other nipple.

Arousal makes her sway on her feet. Jimmy makes a hungry sound in the back of his throat, around her nipple, stiff and tingling and his fingers playing with the one he abandoned. She repeats his name, breathless, and Jimmy pulls away, leaving her skin puckered and wet. He presses his hips to hers.

“I want to see you,” he says.

“You do.”

His lips flit in a smile. He gathers her dress up around her waist. “Let me?”

She nods. The ground smells wet, and will leave dirt on them, but it smells strongly of sun and rain and she relishes. And her dress is ruched to a yellow band at her waist, and Jimmy has taken her underwear off. All but exposed, she spreads her legs for his mouth. Kisses follow. She loses count when he reaches her kneecap. She knows only that he gnaws her sweetly, that her clit is hard on his tongue. His fingers press inside her in that steady, blunt way that produces slick sounds. He curls them deep to give her something to clench around as she comes. 

Jimmy loosens her hold on his hair to sit on his haunches. 

“My darling,” he says, working himself free of his jeans. She watches with a glazed, hungry expression. “Emmaline, bend your knees a bit.”

Strong hands guide hers to grip the bend of each knee, so that she’s utterly spread. Held open. Seen. 

Partly clothed and heavy lidded and kneeling, Jimmy penetrates her easily. 

Gaze trained on that slick, private part of her, where he’s inside her, Jimmy has a particular fascination with the glossy flesh under his fingers, the sinuous play between his touch and her pleasure. Her words come slow from her mouth. Wondering.

“You’re inside me…”

Jimmy leans up for her breasts, fingertips closing on her nipples. Rolling them slowly, he nods. 

“Yes.”

This position allows Jimmy to slide deeper within, to the knot of her cervix. Her body stretches and weeps around him. She constricts. 

He lets her squirm under his ministrations, body desperately wet when his mouth closes on one peak. His mouth tugs pleasure to her belly. 

She wants so badly to come. Says so in a hoarse voice. Jimmy groans around her breast, the same noise as in the study. She can still taste him, remember that hardness against her tongue. The way he had come on her tongue, cock jerking just as it is now. A soft, helpless whine escapes her.

She stiffens and whimpers and thinks wildly that she's there. The whole bloom and grow of it - bursting. Orgasm is something she breaks against while gasping. Barely able to keep her hold of her trembling legs.

Jimmy ruts between them, mouth fallen from her nipple with a broken noise, fucking her rough so that her breasts jostle. Because she’s slick enough to take it – then it grips him too, deep as he can fit himself while he spills. His final thrusts are coated with seed. 

She comes back to herself slowly. 

To birdsong around them, bright sun. A pair of hands unclasp her fingers from her knees and guide her legs loosely around him. Jimmy is still hard and inside her, making her feel so full. Almost unbearably so. His voice comes raspy.

“Thank you.”

Her brows crease. She meets his gaze, eyes still hazy from pleasure. “Whatever for?”

“Being here.”

Her lips curl playfully. “You’re only saying that because of before.”

Jimmy catches her face in his hands, his body pressed tightly to hers, still inside her.

“No,” he says, urgent and soft. “No, I mean it always.”


End file.
